The Pepper Tree — Restaurant in Melbourne

It is so easy to take this gem for granted. It is unpretentious, it’s small footprint hiding the friendly efficient and knowledgeable service accompanying the excellent food. We went for dinner and had fish and steak. You may think this would be boring but the wild barramundi was exceptional; the steak a wonderful piece of porterhouse medium rare the best I have tasted for years. Restaurants in the Burgundy Street area have a modest price point and this is at the higher end but the food exceeds what you should expect. My price estimate includes wine with the meals. At the railway end of Burgundy Street it’s position is not instinctive. It’s worth the uphill stroll. I disagree with Kirsty A regarding New Years Day. It was the only place open and they were incredibly busy. Both available front of house staff members worked without a meaningful break for the whole time they were open. We had a booking, made earlier in the day, a decision made because of the crowd; the table was ready and we were attended to in a reasonable time with the food and coffee as great as usual. The unjustified wrath was to my mind just impatience. No objectivity...

Went there this weekend. Looked like a nice menu and sat outside (2 of us), after several minutes the one waitress working came out and asked us and another couple who had also just sat down and asked, "Do you both want a table for two" - to which, the answer was of course yes - considering we were already sat down at the table outside. There was one other table occupied in the whole venue by another couple and two people waiting for coffee. We waited for 10minutes whilst 3 - 4 coffees were being made for these customers and the waitress never came back out. Both us and the other couple left. No service. Also, the waitress 'sighed' when both us and the other couple said yes we would like to sit down. Terribly poor attitude to customers looking to support local cafe's and incredibly slow service. It seems like a capacity of 2 people is all this place can handle and clearly they don't actually want people to dine there based on the negativity we received upon arrival. A shame as the menu did...

Went there around lunchtime, ordered coffees which were good but when it came to ordering meals, had to find our own cutlery and napkins as there were no waitstaff. I ordered 2 eggs on sourdough bread and got 3 eggs and disgusting brown avocado. I went inside to let the lovely guy at the front know but there was no one at the counter so I walked to the window where the chefs were. I placed my plate down and it slipped and one of them accused me of slamming my plate. Then he told me not to make a big fuss about avocado and to tell the staff at the front. I said there was no one around. He then huffed and puffed and said he would give me another. His attitude was so aggressive and p'd off that I ended up saying not to worry about it. His reaction to this was to say "yeah, I wont" and used foul language in reference to the situation with his fellow chef. I payed for the food and left...